July 30, 2007

So that wraps our first ever remote con. Special thanks go out to Ultraist Agent Justin Kupka for making this possible. It will be interesting to see the residual effects of this experiment. I wonder if we’ll get any mail…

Good luck getting some response. In my most “optimistic” view I’d gather People Suck at a ratio of about 1:1’000’000. So unless you gave away a million free comics I’d guess it’s a long-shot that someone has the decency to comment to you and/or Blair.

Time will tell if your numbers hold up. I always have to remind myself that I never wrote in to the comics I enjoyed over the past decades. I just didn’t think that my letters mattered (otherwise I would have written). So, if I thought that way, then there is a good chance others think the same…

In the meantime, I should look in the mail bag to see if there is any other letters I can post…

Excellent point. I never wrote to books when I was younger because I never wanted to see a letter in print, and that seems to be the main attraction for a people writing in.
I sent off the occasional note to Dave Sim and Gerhard, but always with boldly noted NOT OK TO PRINT (even these public displays of “posting” make me a bit queasy).

Nowadays I send them off strategically, like one to Ultimate Spider-Man, because I sense there may be a backlash against Stuart Immonen with those that actually thought Mark Bagley had *any* redeeming value (aside from making deadline), and wanted to show some support for someone strangely not of super-star billing.
Although sadly it seems he’s (SI) going to go the photo-tracing route with backgrounds; fuckin’ shame).

There was a small spike, but mostly they could be traced to links I dropped in any San Diego centric message board. I got another spike in sales, which seem to be from the good ole Cerebus Yahoos!

If past cons are any indication, the feedback will come from unexpected places. Like when last year I sent some sample comics to indy friendly stores. No response (save for Calum Johnston of Strange Adventures).

However when we went to A.P.E. we had people who showed up at our booth saying things like “OH! My friend told me I HAVE to read this comic!” which is strange because the only way they could have gotten it in San Francisco was from one of the stores I sent the samples to (which I asked for them to try and sell).

I think my biggest miscalculation on the San Diego thing was assuming that only people interested in the comic would take it, rather than people snatching whatever free stuff they can grab.

The next promotional stunt will probably be a 25 or 50 cent comic… that should ward off the vultures.